By Devin Morrissey

Share on:

It’s a known fact that younger consumers prefer using mobile devices over the standard desktop approach. In fact, mobile usage is eclipsing desktop usage and it doesn’t look like it’s going to slow down any time soon. What is your business doing to appeal to the younger masses?

Including mobile devices in your social media marketing campaign can no longer be delayed. However, if you try to “copy and paste” your current marketing campaign for mobile, you’ll run into some major issues. So, how do you successfully involve mobile devices to run seamlessly in your social media marketing campaign? You may want to continue reading for some tips below.

Tip #1: Mobile Optimization

Before you start any marketing efforts, you’ll want to make sure that you optimize your whole operation for mobile devices. This doesn’t mean that you need to ditch your desktop marketing campaign entirely — you just need to make sure all your content will look as good on a mobile device as it does on a desktop. Consider some of the following tips to create a unified experience for your customers to enjoy among all devices.

Responsive Web Design

A responsive web design is recognized for its ability to display content, images, and video so that it adapts to whatever device the information is being presented on. With so many people visiting company websites on mobile devices, businesses have run into the problem of information being too large, too small, or not even shown.

Of course, this is very damaging to your business operations; if your website doesn’t display correctly on a mobile device, a customer is very likely to go to the next website that will display correctly — taking their business to another company. For example, you may have been browsing the web on your smartphone, only to come across a site where the content is too small or the images too big. What did you do? Did you immediately exit the website, or fight through the frustration?

It is crucial that your information displays correctly for mobile devices to accommodate the short patience some of your visitors may have and make sure no information will be lost between devices. For this reason, you’ll want to make sure to optimize all company landing pages for mobile devices. You may have engaging content on social media that is strong enough to get a customer to your landing page, but if anything hinders them when they are at your business website, you may lose a sale or even a customer.

Tip #2: Cater to A Mobile Audience

Now that all your information is flowing seamlessly across any platform, you’ll need to create content for mobile users. Here, a reassessment of your audience will need to be conducted to understand how you can appeal to them on their mobile devices.

Social Media Platforms

You already have a grasp on your audience — demographics such as age, gender, location, etc. Now, since there are many social media platforms that are preferred by different age groups, you’ll have to accurately predict on which social media platform your content will be most successful. It should be noted that your content will be received much better by a younger, mobile using customer base on some social media platforms over others. If you are using the wrong platform, your content may miss the mobile using population altogether.

This correlation of age group to their preferred social media platform by Marketing Land can give you a good idea of which platforms to gear your content towards to reach your respective audience. It is important for your content marketing campaign to know not only where to post, but when to post as well — as different age groups consume social media at different times. There are plenty of marketing tools to help you with this, but QuickBooks recommends buffer, as “Buffer lets you easily share and schedule posts on multiple social media platforms.” This means that you can write a great post and schedule it for when the bulk of your followers are going to be on social media to make the biggest impact.

Facebook Ads

Although different audiences may prefer various social media platforms, Facebook should always be a platform for your social media marketing efforts. A wide variety of age groups use Facebook, and the most substantial majority of visits are mobile. Facebook ads are very successful, and they have now hopped on the mobile train.

Callrail explains this mobile ad transformation in saying that “Mobile advertising represented approximately 84% of Facebook’s advertising revenue in 2016, and that number is expected to continue to grow.” Understanding this information, businesses are now carrying out a call now CTA into Facebook ads — making it extremely convenient for customers to call a business right from the ad. This mobile-first approach appeals to the instant gratification tendencies of the younger, mobile generations.

A successful marketing technique is one that can get a customer to the final point of a sale with the fewest number of clicks, taps, or redirection of websites. It can work exceptionally well to target your local audience — you can imagine a hungry person wanting to eat, seeing an ad for your restaurant that is close by, and then hitting the “call now” button directly off your ad. Take a look at how easy this process can be:

Video Marketing Content

Video has become one of the hottest digital marketing trends of 2018. This is because video pairs so well with mobile. Social media has reflected the popularity of video content, as many of the video-centric social media platforms and features have erupted. If you have ever used Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or Snapchat — which there’s a near impossibility you haven’t — then you know how vital video content is to these social media platforms.

The most successful social media platforms are those that have endorsed a strong video content presence. If pictures are worth a thousand words, then a video is worth a million pictures. The reason for this is that video is easily consumable, hence the popularity of Snapchat and Instagram Stories.

Video can allow for a more personal look at your business or brand, especially if it is live streaming video. Whether pre-recorded or live, video content is perfect for social media, to more effectively communicate information, maintain your visibility and brand awareness, as well as facilitate audience engagement.

Tip #3: Audience Engagement

At the heart of social media is social networking, and your network is your audience. Neglecting your audience on social media will have various adverse effects on your business. So, it’s up to you to not only keep your audience engaged but to actively listen and converse with them. Engaging your audience in this way will build customer loyalty to your brand because you’ll be connecting with your audience members on a level that speaks personally to them. Social listening can help you connect with your audience, create better content for them, as well as provide excellent customer service all over social media.

Social Listening

People talk on social media. Social listening, for a marketing approach, involves observing this online chatter that mentions your brand, shares your content, comments about your business, etc. This chatter will give you direct indicators of how you are doing as a business — what you could be doing better, what you are doing successfully, even what content was well received by your followers. If you could hear people talking about you, personally, wouldn’t you want to listen to see what they thought of you? When determining the success of your marketing efforts and brand reputation, social listening can prove to be very useful.

Customer Service

Social listening isn’t just listening, it also includes conversing with your social media followers. By understanding customer inquiries or comments and responding to them, you can provide excellent customer service. For example, if a follower had a complaint and you were able to answer them back to settle the complaint personally, it would not only be seen by that follower as a positive experience with your company, but other followers will acknowledge this as great customer service and that your company cares about its customers.

Social media customer service is not only beneficial for responding to negative feedback but positive as well. Your customers like to be noticed, so reply to a tweet or comment that mentions you and actively engage your audience. When speaking of small business growth, Fiscal Tiger lends their expertise on customer service in saying that “You can also ask your customers for targeted feedback about certain aspects of your business. This might give you clearer feedback than just feedback in general, especially if you’ve already got some ideas on ways to expand or improve.”

The best brands maintain visibility through encouraging positive feedback while correctly handling the negative. The great thing about social media and mobile devices is that it has created this discourse to be possible almost instantaneously. This unique ability of mobile devices is the reason why mobile usage is shooting past desktop and will continue to do so.

It was only a matter of time before social media marketing found its way into mobile devices. Mobile devices can take social media and its applications on the go. As a business, you should always have a content marketing strategy for desktop. However, a mobile adaption of your social media marketing campaign is necessary for your company to stay visible and stay afloat.

About the Author

Devin prides himself on being a jack of all trades; his career trajectory is more a zigzag than an obvious trend, just the way he likes it. He pops up across the Pacific Northwest, though never in one place for long. You can follow him more reliably on Twitter.

Social Hire - the Social Media Agency for recruiters and small businesses. With outstanding Social Media Agency reviews on Google and exceptional client retention rates, the team at Social Hire really do know what works (and just as importantly, what doesn’t work). Why not engage a Social Media Agency that not only gets results, but that does so for a third of the cost of employing an in-house Social Media Manager? Simply click "Book a Call" to speak to one of our friendly team.